Vaccination Critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Could Chair Vaccine Commission

President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to head a commission studying vaccines, tilting his administration against the bulk of scientific research on the safety and effectiveness of vaccination.

"President-elect Trump has some doubts about the current vaccine policies and he has questions about it," Kennedy told reporters after a meeting with Trump Tuesday. "His opinion doesn't matter but the science does matter and we ought to be reading the science and we ought to be debating the science."

An environmental activist and attorney, Kennedy is the son of late presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.

According to CNN, Kennedy assured the press he and the President-elect are both "very pro-vaccine" but want to ensure vaccines are "as safe as they possibly can be."

A Trump spokesperson later clarified Kennedy's comments, stating a "Committee on Autism" is in the exploratory stages, but its leader has yet to be decided.

Although one is Democrat and the other Republican, Kennedy and Trump have this in common: neither say they are carte blanche opposed to vaccines, but both have repeatedly espoused a demonstrably damaging belief in the unproven link between vaccines and autism.

Kennedy, in fact, has written the book (or, at least, a book) on that connection, one considered spurious by the majority of the scientific community. He last year claimed vaccines caused a "holocaust" among children, although he later apologized for using the term. He has lobbied for states' ability to allow exemptions for parents who do not wish to vaccinate their children.

Trump, meanwhile, has provided anecdotal evidence and offered numerous statements spreading the same debunked belief.

In the medical community, there is widespread consensus on the benefits of vaccinating children, and despite the idea's enduring popularity among certain subsets of the population, peer-reviewed, credible studies has found no proven link between autism and vaccination.

Archive photo by Daniel Schwen, used under Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons

Editor's Note: Although Kennedy's initial statement to the press indicated he would lead a group studying vaccines, a Trump spokesperson later clarified those comments, stating a "committee on autism" is in the exploratory stages, but its leader has yet to be decided. This story and its headline have been updated to reflect the new information.